


such is the character

by loosingletters



Series: a thousand possibilities [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sith Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 12:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: “How are your children, Duchess?”Time slowed down as Satine froze, reevaluating her surroundings.These are dark times to be living in.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze/Anakin Skywalker, Satine Kryze & Anakin Skywalker, Satine Kryze/Anakin Skywalker
Series: a thousand possibilities [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1887079
Comments: 19
Kudos: 120





	such is the character

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ghost_Owl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_Owl/gifts).



> You ever just have a very fun convo about Satine and trauma?

“How are your children, Duchess?”

Time slowed down as Satine froze, reevaluating her surroundings.

She was supposed to be alone in her rooms. Her wing of the estate was entirely banned for visitors, not even any servants were allowed to step into them. The risk of assassination was too great. Even the guard rotations had tripled since the last _incident_ , which had left her own guard too thin to uphold security so that their ranks had been filled up by spies, lovingly gifted to her. Satine had accepted her new guards with as much grace as possible, knowing that an outright refusal of their intrusion would lose her the favor she had gained by lying, begging, and bargaining with the monster brutalizing her home.

If she faltered, fell, showed any sign of weakness, her enemies would certainly close in on her, and her people would suffer. Satine wasn’t sure she could survive failing her people again. Either her torment would see to her end, or she’d kill herself in her grief, mourning the death of her purpose. Ever since she’d been too young for the burden of her mantel, she had lived for others, her people. Satine knew duty and only duty.

There was no space for anything else in her heart.

Her hands closed around the knife hidden away in her sleeve. Satine hadn’t carried a blaster in years, no matter what her guards demanded. She just couldn’t hold them without thinking of horrors already decades past. That was what you got for growing up on a war-torn planet. either you managed to master the art of shooting down living, breathing people in cold blood, or you were left entirely incapable of such acts. Satine knew what kind of person she had become. Blasters were the weapons of battlefields, left her arms shaking and her aim off, but knives she could handle. They rarely become too much for her scarred mind.

(But, like a clockwork, they still made her throw up on all the anniversaries of blood-drenched cities.)

Satine turned around only slowly, pretending to be much more of a damsel in distress than she was.

(She loathed _violence_ , taking a life, being forced to be a part of this abhorrent abomination calling itself war, but sometimes, _today_ , duty had to be stronger. She could cry about once more blood-stained hands later.)

“Who are you?” she asked, voice firm. “And how did you get in?”

The stranger was tall. A black mask covered their face and an equally dark hood took care of the rest. They could be human, twi’lek, or perhaps even a togruta – there were too many options as their many robes and armor concealed most of their features.

“I was invited,” the stranger replied, voice distorted by some kind of mechanism. Another moment passed, then they took off their mask, revealing a familiar face.

Satine breathed out a sigh of relief and dropped her arms, knife disappearing far up her sleeve again.

“Anakin,” she said. “Did you _have_ to do this?”

Anakin grinned at her just a little crookedly. “Sorry, had to make sure Taru had scanned the room for bugs in case anyone might listening in.”

Satine rolled her eyes. She regularly checked her rooms for bugs, she wouldn’t allow for such an invasion of her privacy. A small droid flew out from beneath her desk and settled on Anakin’s shoulder like a little bird.

“That is Taru?” Last Satine remembered, the espionage droid had been much bigger still. Anakin was constantly tinkering with it, so it was no surprise that he had managed to downsize it even more.

“Eh, desperate times call for desperate measurements,” Anakin replied. Tiredly, he dropped down on her bed and took off his shoes and socks, wiggling his toes when they were free. “I’m never getting off this bed again,” he mumbled and cracked his back. “This is the best sleep I’ve had in months and I haven’t even fallen asleep yet.”

Satine allowed herself to smile at his antics. In moments like these, he looked almost his age again. The war had aged them both terribly. She rechecked her door to ensure it had been double locked and nobody would barge in now, revealing this treasonous meeting.

“Were the last missions that bad?”

Anakin only hummed. “Yeah, Saw suffered some big losses that won’t be easy to recover from. He also wasn’t all that happy I decided to leave now, but I left Cal and Merrin with him. They’ll be doing fine in my stead.”

Ah, right. Anakin’s new apprentice and said student’s best friend. They hadn’t managed to find Ahsoka or any other Jedi, but Anakin talked about Cal as if the boy represented each and every Jedi lost.

“How are the two?”

“Adjusting.”

_Adjusting_ , that was one thing to call their current state of being. Satine knew she couldn’t ask for them to be doing well. Nobody, who was a decent sentient being, could be doing well during these times and Satine had asked Anakin not to lie to her.

“They are fine,” she said in turn.

Anakin blinked. “What?”

“The children,” Satine repeated. “You were asking after them. I sent Korkie on a diplomatic mission and Luke and Leia are with him. They were eager to see more of the galaxy and we’ve been struggling lately, even with the _aid_ the Empire sent us. They are currently on Alderaan, fostering an amicable relationship with the Queen and Senator Organa, who is visiting his homeworld at the time.”

She needn’t say more on the matter. By now, Anakin and she were attuned enough to each other’s thoughts – to the mind connecting them – that she knew he’d follow her.

“Ah, we’re throwing in with Bail’s lot then?” Anakin asked.

“His approach has merit. More than that of most.”

“You don’t like what I’ve been up to with Saw,” Anakin concluded, though there was no real heat behind it. At another time of day, any time of day, there might have been, but right now, in the middle of the night, they were too exhausted. “You can just say so, you know?”

But she couldn’t. Drily, Satine thought that there was no conversation with Anakin that could be simple. She and Anakin had fought countless disagreements about what to do since the end of everything, since he had shown up on the small flecks of land on Mandalore still under her control, cradling two crying newborns while Anakin himself was as silent as the dead.

It had taken a week until the news from the Core had reached them and Anakin’s silence had begun to make sense.

Satine hadn’t needed to ask after the reason for his living death when the deceased half of his soul was parading around as the Emperor’s new enforcer.

Not that anyone would know, hidden as his face was under that dreadful mask.

It hadn’t escaped Satine’s notice that Anakin’s looked just similar enough that somebody, who had known both, might be able to pick out their connection.

Nobody had until now, but hardly anyone knew of Anakin Skywalker’s survival.

Or that of his children.

“I don’t want to fight,” Satine decided. “My day wasn’t great and I don’t think yours was either.”

Anakin paused, looking at her with his blue eyes, just a few shades lighter than those that haunted her at night.

“No,” he said finally. “I don’t want to fight either. I just wanted to…”

_Go home_ , her heart supplied.

_His home is dead_ , the traitorous mind hissed.

Wordlessly, Satine changed out of her day robes and put on her sleeping clothes before slipping underneath the heavy blanket, pressed against the warm body next to her.

Quietly, the two of them just laid there, the scene reminiscent of different times. The smell was familiar, ashes, blood, and war.

“I miss him,” Anakin confessed in the dark, the only time the two of them could admit anything truthful at all. “I don’t think I’d be able to tell him no if he’d just get rid of Sidious despite all he’s done. I hate it. I hate _him_.”

“No, you don’t,” Satine corrected gently, squeezed his flesh hand. “You love him still.”

It was easier to speak about Anakin’s feelings, bright and burning as he was, than think on her own, confirm out loud what they both already knew: there were very few places they wouldn’t follow Obi-Wan Kenobi, no matter what name he carried at the time.

Such was the character of love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it!
> 
> Uh, for some context:  
> \- Satine didn't die (obviously)  
> \- idk role reversal, Obi-Wan somehow fell ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ and Anakin didn't  
> \- Padmé died, Anakin ran off to where he thought Obi-Wan wouldn't suspect him and hoped he could find Ahsoka: Mandalore  
> \- Satine takes in the twins and raises them while Anakin raises hell  
> \- Queerplatonic... okay what the heck is even Anakin/Satine's ship name
> 
> I may write more idk, this AU is kinda fun.


End file.
